Slightly AU, because I reached a point of disgust with Marvel's lack of time-line continuality. So I picked a point I liked and have spring-boarded from it. :)
Warnings: Uhm... Hurt. Comfort comes in the next chapter. Musing. Homosexuality between the good Professor and the Master of Magnetism.
/.../ stands for thoughts
~....~ Mental images, 'spoken' thoughts.
~~~~~~
Teir 1/?
~~~~~~
~'Why are you going?'~
He'd asked himself that many times, but to hear his own son ask him -- his own flesh and blood, questioning him! -- to hear the thinly veiled accusation in that voice, made him stop and wonder.
Truly, why he *was* going?
~"To see if there is truly a chance of the 'peace' others so strongly believe in between humanity and mutants."~
~"You are a poor liar, father."~
A carded answer, the best reply in his repertoire of old clichés. /Some days I feel as if I read from a script,/ he mused, peering out the window of the air-plane. Far below, he could see the ant-like dots of cars. That meant they'd land soon, and he would have to blend away again.
But blending away was only as easy as wearing a long-sleeved shirt and not using his powers.
When the powers had first come to him, they had been hard to control. Airplanes would have been out of the question for him in those early days, so boat was how he'd gotten to Israel...
And that was how he'd met the man who'd been his greatest friend, and at times, his greatest enemy. /Charles. Would you be proud to see me sitting in a plane filled with Genoshans and humans? Our kind, and those who still fear us. Down there, on the ground, they are as insignificant as the ants they seem to be. Easy to crush or pick off in small groups or one by one. But give them the chance, and they'll swarm and attack, able to kill those stronger than them./
The stewardess paused beside his aisle, casting concerned eyes towards him as he looked away from the window and sat back in his seat, letting out an exhausted sound that brought back the rattling cough.
"Are you alright, sir? Do you need water?"
From her tone, Magnus knew she simply saw him as an ill old man. /Ill of mind, or of body -- both? Perhaps. Genosha is a haven for mutants, a safe-house to hide in while the world comes to terms. Just like your school, Charles./
"No, but thank you." Thank you? Had her concern for him touched him, somehow?
/I'm a weak doddering fool at last, Charles. You'll be pleased to know it./
So many thoughts directed at that man, his friend of old -- and at least a half of them were caught by the sensitive. Once in a while, Magnus would feel a comforting brush of his mind, and savour it. In earlier years, he'd kept his mental walls so high, blocking out all of Xavier's attempts to touch his mind. Now he at least let the man splash through his fortress' moat.
Leaning past the sleeping Genoshan who sat beside Magneto, she touched the panel above magneto's head. "This button will put down an oxygen mask for you, sir -- feel free to use it if you have difficulties breathing."
"Thank you, again." Banality, because he knew he wouldn't give in to such weakness.
His gaze drifted back to the window, and the young girl went back to serving drinks. Her gentleness, her eyes reminded him so much of his daughter...
/My dear child./ Even now, so many years after, it struck a knife to his heart to remember her. /So many lives, cut short.../
/I'm only here to see if it is possible, Charles. To see, for a final time, whose dream is the falsity. And choose the lesser of two evils./
Was that it? Or was it to escape from his self-made haven, to...
/To keep from crumbling -- there is something terribly lacking in this life,/ he thought, pressing his hand against the window. /I've no drive./ A terrible thing for a politician or a leader of a country, to loose their drive. To wake up every morning, dreading the day to come and regretting the day that had come before. And he was weak, his powers waxing and waning at will.
For the first time since Auschwitz, he was frightened.
Erik Magnus Lehnsherr was going to seek out Charles Xavier during the convention in Boston, and see if his old friend would be of any help.
/Because, Charles, you are my final hope, as you have ever been. In my darkest hours, I've ever come back to you for your wisdom and aid./
~~~
Erik was thinking about him again.
Charles Xavier always knew when certain people were thinking about him. It was part of who he was, to be so sensitive to certain thoughts that they virtually jumped out at him.
But every person had a 'tone', a mental signature to their thoughts. And the desperate outreach towards him was completely familiar to him, though he'd only felt it a few times in recent years.
But once, years that seemed an eternity ago, he'd felt it nearly every night.
Laying comfortably beneath the sheets of his bed in the Sheraton hotel, Xavier let his mind drift back to that time. Back when he simply knew Magneto was 'different' like he was.
In the first days after arrival in Israel, they'd shared a bed and room out of necessity. Erik couldn't afford paying for a room yet, and Charles couldn't pay for two. He couldn't remember how they'd ended up in the same bed the second night, but..
/We did, didn't we? And I never cheated on Gabriel,/ Xavier reminded himself. /No matter how tempting it was.../
Magnus trusted Xavier so much that he actually let his guard down around the man -- not entirely, of course, but let enough walls fall to show Xavier his pain, and let the other man soothe away his nightmares when he could.
But some of those nightmares couldn't be soothed by even the gentlest of mental touches -- only by having another in his bed, someone that he didn't associate with the war. That had given him trouble with his wife, Magnus had told Charles. They tried to put the war past them at all times, move on and start anew, but they both bore the physical and mental scars of it and could only cling to each-other for as long as possible.
So, in his 'new' life, Magnus clung to nothing, dared not do it, but shared a room with a friend, another 'mutant' that he could trust, and let his guard slip a little.
It was more than Charles could have ever hoped he'd get from Erik, the raw sensation of their minds touching and the softer one of body-heat through thin cloth, of those two bodies pressed close even in the heat.
/It was strange to live with him, Charles,/ came the chiding reminder, to keep himself from gilding the past. The oddest thing had bee the food -- hidden under a loose floor board, bread wrapped in linen, dried meat under the mattress... He'd been tempted to throw it all out, until he sat himself down and thought it through like a psychiatrist should.
Magnus did it out of a fear that he might one day run out of food, or the resources to get it, and wasn't about to let himself starve again. /I wonder if he still does?/ There was a high chance that he might.
/And why am I thinking so much about him now? Because I want him here? Yes, I miss his company greatly./
Especially since Lillandra had quietly broken off any relation with him that spanned beyond friendship -- it had hurt, even though they hadn't seen each other in years. They still had access to all that technology, if needed, but...
/It was just a pretence for us both -- time to move past that, to.../
There it was, again -- Erik was thinking about him very strongly, something... /If I centre on it too much, he'll know I'm reaching back, so I can't.../
And he was getting closer, steadily...
/Coming to the conference. Why?/
No immediate answers to that question, though one drifted languidly through his sleepy mind.
/For me./
~~~
There was something deeply satisfying about watching the mulling crowd that filled the convention centre. Humans and Mutants and Mutates alike, mingling and going from booth to booth, learning information about mutation, listening to key speakers talk about rights, and how to live in a 'human' world, participating in open discussion forums...
/It all goes so well,/ Xavier mused as he rested his chin in one palm, arm propped up on the arm of his wheel-chair. The crowd of people that recognised him when he was in view made it simply too much for him to actually be at the booth his 'students' ran. So Xavier remained absconded behind the blue curtain, watching what he could and resting. His voice was already raw from speaking for four hours at a press conference.
And the exhaustion came from a fitful sleep -- he'd slept, but the whole night he'd been half-pulled onto the psychic plane by Magneto's powerful mental outreaching. /There must be something terribly wrong with him. At least subconsciously, he's distressed./ Half the times Magnus had been so.. distressed, he'd ended up on Xavier's door-step. The other half he'd ended up in some sort of jail or another.
Lazing away the time behind that curtain, he'd tried to reach back only to find nothing. /Which means that he's shielding himself from me, for any number of reasons. He doesn't want me to interfere with whatever he's planning, likely.../ Those thoughts trailed off as he heard a foot-fall behind him, so softly placed.
"Enjoying this so much, Charles, that it's impossible to resist the urge to sleep?" A familiar voice, rich in timbre and firmly accented. In his mind's eye, Xavier could see, just from the man's tone, how he was standing, with that certain haughty pose he took on in public. And as he turned his wheelchair to look, he saw that he was very right. Magneto, standing there with his arms crossed. There was a certain air he held himself with, a nobility that only added to his self-imposed aloofness; even dressed down as he was just then, in tan slacks and a pale linen shirt, he still could have been pulled out of a picture book of the nobility of old. Firm, almost military, posture, and a classic muscular form; broad shoulders, narrow waist, and a face that was ageless in it's strength.
/Look at him, then look at me -- same age, and yet... so different,/ the wheel-chair bound man mused. Compared to Magneto, he was lowly, at least in form.
Magnus, however, saw him quite differently. The essence of sophistication and control, dignity and diplomacy, purified and poured into a mostly healthy, lean body that looked quite nice in the grey suit he wore. /Armani perhaps? Since when are you one to have fashion *taste*, Charles?/
"Quite, Erik -- It's very pleasurable to watch Humanity mingling with Mutants, without incident."
/Just what I expect you to say, my friend -- shall we go by the old script, or make a new one?/ He felt it then, the faint tendril trying to brush his shielded mind and failing. /Keep trying. I'll let you in when you hit something right./ "It will never last, Charles; do you really think the humans can last the next two days without tearing down the façade of your ideals?" Quietly voiced, so no others could hear their conversation. "It is very wise of you, however, to keep low-key." The silver-haired head nodded to the simple arm-powered wheel chair, raising a hand to cover a cough.
/Sick?/ Xavier didn't think he'd ever seen Magnus sick before, and for some reason, it made him both uneasy and sympathetic. /My old friend.../ "There are so many powers in the area that I didn't wish to risk interference," he spoke evenly, tone faintly amused. "I take it that you are attempting to be 'low-key', also?"
"Contrary to the views of you and your 'x-men', I do not live to stir up trouble, Xavier. I simply wish to observe this show -- perhaps it will work. And if it does not, I will be here to aid anyone that I can. So I suppose that I'll be seeing you around, Charles." With the soft rustle of cloth, he turned, gave a passing backwards wave, and walked out of the curtained off area with a smooth gait and Charles watched until he was gone completely before turning back once more to the break in the curtains he watched out from..
The convention was a strained place to have a conversation with his old friend, and Xavier had been put on edge by the heavy mental barriers Magnus was protecting himself with. /What could he be hiding? Or perhaps it's just precaution considering all the mutants that are around. Paranoia, perhaps?/ Magnus had always erred toward the safety paranoia when in a crowd, rather than trust.
Minutes later Scott Summer's form entered the little curtained area where Charles was, breaking him once more from a pleasant daze of thought. Casual all the way up to his red-quartz 'sun' glasses. He smiled down at his mentor, and handed him a flat electronic communications pad that was currently on 'hold'. "There's a bit of a stir-up in Genosha right now, Professor, but it shouldn't spread to this function. Magneto just transferred complete control of the government to Voght -- Pytro is willing to support her, and most of the Mutates will, also, so hopefully the hand-off will go smoothly." There was no place lower on Cyclops' 'to go to' list than Genosha, and the idea of having to go there again was... Horrifying. "But there's the question as to *why* Magneto stepped down -- so Hank is looking into it right now."
That left him feeling a little obsolete, but Xavier nodded. No need to tell Scott that he'd just talked with Magnus, was there? No. Such information would only put the entire team on edge, and being trigger-happy at the moment would be devastating. He looked down to the communication pad, about to ask who it was, when Scott spoke up, "It's Moira. With her weekly run-down of Legacy Virus cases."
"Thank you, Scott. Is the convention winding down for the night yet?" /Less and less people pass by.../
"Yes, sir, it is."
"Then I'll come out again as soon as I finish talking to Moira." Respectfully, Scott slipped out again. Xavier turned the 'hold' off, and was instantly greeted with Moira's tired and slightly frustrated expression.
"I was on hold for half an' hour, Charles!"
That drew a soft laugh from Xavier, as he replied, "I just got a chance to get to your call, Moira, but I'm sorry you had to wait so long."
That seemed to relax her, and she laughed herself; around her eyes were the signs of the virus, a certain darkness that made her look older than she was. "Och, It's alright, Charles." There was a pause, as she looked away from the screen, and tapped something into the control panel before her. "There's a swarm a' new cases in Genosha, o' course. Probably ten 'r so more. One in New York -- he's already being sent to Norfolk to be treated. Four in California, and two in England that are all going to report here to Muir. And one in Boston, that's... well, he's a Genoshan. I've been tracking him from there, and he's been in Boston for the past two days, Charlie -- doubt he knows he has it. Probably there f'r the conference. Speaking of that, how's it going?"
"Remarkably well, so far," Xavier uttered. "Put a track of the virus victim up, and I'll see if I can find him or her, Moira."
She nodded, and turned away to tap a few more things into the computer. "Poor sot, carrying on without knowing what's wrong. Here you go, Charlie."
"Thank you again, Moira -- I'll talk to you again later."
~~~~~
It seemed as if every turn he made was blocked by a throng of people, a sea of humanity made up of those fools who were 'protesting' the convention. Every exit brimming with those people, just outside, and police...
It had been no trouble for Magnus to unlock a side-door and slip out, locking it behind him.
/For the moment my powers work, but for how much longer...?/ That was completely disconcerting to a man such as Magnus, who'd relied on -- and used as a crutch -- those powers that now failed him so often, and alternatively swept out of control.
Outside the exit Magnus has slipped out of, there was no crowd -- unlike the main exit, where the crowd, held back by police, was so thick that even the police had trouble pressing their way through.
Let alone a Mutant who served as a near world-wide focus for hatred against mutants.
/Not that I don't completely deserve it,/ came the mentally sighed thought. What better time to give himself a brow-beating then when he was alone? /What else should I expect of them? Petty wants and fears drive them onward, just as it's driven forward so many before the.../
But he'd known want. Known fear. Known hunger, and pain, and so many other things that no man should ever know to the degree he had. And he knew deprivation from those things, knew how to starve physically and emotionally.
/Amelia will keep them safe. She shall keep away their hunger, their fear... Do them all so much better than I can./ And she would, wouldn't she? Amelia had always loved the mutates so very much, she was... the epitome of Charles' dream with the working abilities of his own. Even though he no longer held faith in it himself...
Magnus' pace, as he walked, was languid beneath the night's sky. The cool night air was refreshing, a change from the cramped, crowded atmosphere inside the convention. Just to walk, and savour it...
A slight squinting of his blue-grey eyes gained him the sight he so treasured to watch -- as yet, it wasn't failing him. The glints and swirls of magnetic fields, bright splashes of colour that made the street-lights look dull was he walked, enjoying the whispering brush of the wind over his face and the display of nature's laws.
Even the cough that nagged him wasn't going to make it un-enjoyable. The night itself had been at least a little productive. He'd seen Charles again and promised to himself to have an actual private talk with the man the next day -- but just then, he looked forward to a hot meal to take away some of the chill in his body, and the bed in his hotel-room
His room was in the Weston, and wouldn't have taken more than five minutes to walk to through the 'sky bridge' that connected it to the Conference Centre. But the press of people, moving like cattle, was too much for him most times -- he had to get to the open expanse of the outside, had to get space to move again. It was near impossible, at times, for him to stand in lines; after being *part* of the crowd in the convention, walking in those narrow sky bridges would have been unbearable.
Would Charles understand why he had to walk through the streets of Boston at midnight, to get to his hotel?
/Perhaps. He knows my past.../ Yes. He would, and Magnus knew it, subconsciously at least.
The drifting musings of the mutant's mind made him less alert than he was usually, as he walked past a group of perhaps eight teenagers, either un-noticing of them, or uncaring.
"Hey, gramps!" The call-out reached his ears, but he didn't react -- no reason to favour them with the pleasure of reacting. He only kept walking past, not picking up his speed. Magnus had no reason to show the fear he shouldn't have had. He'd have never feared the taunting of children before, when his powers worked properly, would they?
Genosha was no longer a place that he belonged, with his powers so unstable. /My age, probably,/ came the though as he kept walking, turning a corner that wouldn't take him to his hotel. That would explain the sickness that had plagued him, also. A flu that he couldn't shake, because he simply wasn't strong enough anymore to fight it.
Magnus heard those foot-falls follow him around the corner.
/That's fine, children -- What do you think you'll do? Rob me?/
He reached out with his power, to pick off them with their own weaponry before they could attack him only to find...
/Nothing./
Turning to face the boys, who stood there in a tight knit group, he kept calm, kept feeling for his power, any slight spark of it at all that he might have drawn upon.
"What'cha doing out so late at night, gramps?" the 'leader' a young man who in the light of day would have been perfectly normal and unfrightening.
"Walking from a whore's house, or coming from that conference back there?" a second one asked, as the little group moved subtly forward, closing in on him. Magnus took a slow step backwards, searching and searching for his power, to no avail.
"I haven't any money on me," he murmured smoothly, trying to shove down his accent as much as possible. "So let us not waste each-other's time."
"Big talkin' foreigner," the leader murmured, taking a step closer to Magnus, who held his ground. Blue-grey eyes were steady, and he knew he looked calm and haughty. "We're just going to check you for money..."
Grabbing Magnus' wrist was his first mistake. His second was holding on when the older man swung him into the wall. Even sick as he was, he still was in healthy shape and knew how to fight in a street fight -- how to fight for his life, and that was just what he faced then. Seven against one now...
Until the lead pipe cracked across his skull -- then he was only aware of not having sensed the pipe before it hit him.
~~~~~
"Och, Charles, what took so long?" On the communication unit, Moria looked like she'd just been taking a nap -- give the time it was on Muir Island, she may have been doing just that.
/But she's always so willing to be helpful.../ The residuals of a short romance and a lasting friendship. "I had to explain to Cyclops that having the entire team go and find this poor fellow would be devastating." Xavier wheeled his way down the street, following the map that filled half the pad. The street-lights gave enough of a cool glow to see by, to follow the red blip that had started by heading to the Weston, but by the time Charles had actually left the convention, was approaching the Sheraton, where he and the rest of the X-men had their rooms. /Conveinient, at least, that we'll have him close to safety.../
So the person was definitely going to the convention, since all three hotels connected to the centre were booked solid for it. Which also, logically, meant that the person would recognise Xavier and not take him as a threat.
At least, he hoped he wouldn't.
Xavier had already decided that since he had already have the virus once, and lived, he'd take the mutant in by himself, so that he could keep watch over the victim until the contagiousness of it was eradicated by the proper battery of drugs.
"An' then you had ta' remind him that *you* taught *him* and nowt the other way around, right." She wasn't asking, just stating, as she looked onto her own map. "He's been holding steady for five minutes now, Charles. I think he might be in the lobby, lounging...?"
"Likely," he agreed, nearing closer and closer to that little red 'blip' on the screen. /I hope he's in the lounge.../ Of course, there was the chance that it was a woman and not a man who was infected with it.
But all chances of that plummeted as he turned the corner and saw a battered form laying on the ground.
"Sweet god," he murmured softly, taken aback for a moment as he began to pick up familiar mental cries. "I've found him, Moira -- I'll get in contact with you again as soon as I can." Then he turned the pad off, quickly pushing himself close to Magnus' crumpled body.
Still alive, thankfully, which Xavier noted as he leaned forward in his chair, trying to uncurl Magnus -- it looked like it had been instinctive to curl up like that, protecting his head, knees and groin from the worst of the blows, while offering his broad back and strong neck to whatever had been used to beat him so hard as to draw bruises that were already blackening.
And his mind was wide open to Xavier, so powerfully he was broad-casting out for help.
~I'm going to die here? Of all places, of all ways, dirty and beaten on the streets of Boston...~
"Magnus?"
There was traffic on the main street, noisey and fast, but all Charles could hear was the other man's hard breathing, the ragged coughs that left Magnus as he began to uncurl, slowly... The scent of blood swirled in Xavier's nostrils as he felt for any spinal injuries before he let his hands tug further to at least get Magneto to lay out. There was a trickle of blood in the swollen looking mouth...
~Hurts... so much...~
"*Erik*! It's Charles -- work with me for now, old friend..."
A feeling of need, strong and powerful, and trust washed over Xavier. ~Charles. Safety...~
"Help," he spoke slowly, voice raw and near useless as he made an attempt to rise from the skin-scraping sidewalk. A groan rattled free of his chest, as he strained to move, until he felt hands that weren't really hands pulling him to his feet; the movements were careful, cautious. Obviously telekinesis, as he was guided to rest against the wheel-chair, the most support lent to those limbs that hurt too much to support themselves.
"I'll help you, Erik," Xavier assured, shaken himself by so... all the sudden knowledge. All those pieces suddenly clicked into a startling picture. "I'll take you into the hotel."
~No hospital.~
~No, Erik, no hospital.~
The walls of Magnus's mind threatened to rise up for a moment, but his concentration was too low to manage it -- instead, Xavier simply extended his own mental shields to his old friend.
~Don't leave me here, Charles, don't...~
"I won't," he assured shakily as he started to wheel forward, toward the back entrance of the hotel, giving enough support to Magnus to make him look like he was walking. He wouldn't leave his friend there, no matter what things Magnus had done in the past...
But he didn't know what he would do in the long run.
/Strange, to think of there being a 'long run' for this.../
~~~~~~
Warnings: Uhm... Hurt. Comfort comes in the next chapter. Musing. Homosexuality between the good Professor and the Master of Magnetism.
/.../ stands for thoughts
~....~ Mental images, 'spoken' thoughts.
~~~~~~
Teir 1/?
~~~~~~
~'Why are you going?'~
He'd asked himself that many times, but to hear his own son ask him -- his own flesh and blood, questioning him! -- to hear the thinly veiled accusation in that voice, made him stop and wonder.
Truly, why he *was* going?
~"To see if there is truly a chance of the 'peace' others so strongly believe in between humanity and mutants."~
~"You are a poor liar, father."~
A carded answer, the best reply in his repertoire of old clichés. /Some days I feel as if I read from a script,/ he mused, peering out the window of the air-plane. Far below, he could see the ant-like dots of cars. That meant they'd land soon, and he would have to blend away again.
But blending away was only as easy as wearing a long-sleeved shirt and not using his powers.
When the powers had first come to him, they had been hard to control. Airplanes would have been out of the question for him in those early days, so boat was how he'd gotten to Israel...
And that was how he'd met the man who'd been his greatest friend, and at times, his greatest enemy. /Charles. Would you be proud to see me sitting in a plane filled with Genoshans and humans? Our kind, and those who still fear us. Down there, on the ground, they are as insignificant as the ants they seem to be. Easy to crush or pick off in small groups or one by one. But give them the chance, and they'll swarm and attack, able to kill those stronger than them./
The stewardess paused beside his aisle, casting concerned eyes towards him as he looked away from the window and sat back in his seat, letting out an exhausted sound that brought back the rattling cough.
"Are you alright, sir? Do you need water?"
From her tone, Magnus knew she simply saw him as an ill old man. /Ill of mind, or of body -- both? Perhaps. Genosha is a haven for mutants, a safe-house to hide in while the world comes to terms. Just like your school, Charles./
"No, but thank you." Thank you? Had her concern for him touched him, somehow?
/I'm a weak doddering fool at last, Charles. You'll be pleased to know it./
So many thoughts directed at that man, his friend of old -- and at least a half of them were caught by the sensitive. Once in a while, Magnus would feel a comforting brush of his mind, and savour it. In earlier years, he'd kept his mental walls so high, blocking out all of Xavier's attempts to touch his mind. Now he at least let the man splash through his fortress' moat.
Leaning past the sleeping Genoshan who sat beside Magneto, she touched the panel above magneto's head. "This button will put down an oxygen mask for you, sir -- feel free to use it if you have difficulties breathing."
"Thank you, again." Banality, because he knew he wouldn't give in to such weakness.
His gaze drifted back to the window, and the young girl went back to serving drinks. Her gentleness, her eyes reminded him so much of his daughter...
/My dear child./ Even now, so many years after, it struck a knife to his heart to remember her. /So many lives, cut short.../
/I'm only here to see if it is possible, Charles. To see, for a final time, whose dream is the falsity. And choose the lesser of two evils./
Was that it? Or was it to escape from his self-made haven, to...
/To keep from crumbling -- there is something terribly lacking in this life,/ he thought, pressing his hand against the window. /I've no drive./ A terrible thing for a politician or a leader of a country, to loose their drive. To wake up every morning, dreading the day to come and regretting the day that had come before. And he was weak, his powers waxing and waning at will.
For the first time since Auschwitz, he was frightened.
Erik Magnus Lehnsherr was going to seek out Charles Xavier during the convention in Boston, and see if his old friend would be of any help.
/Because, Charles, you are my final hope, as you have ever been. In my darkest hours, I've ever come back to you for your wisdom and aid./
~~~
Erik was thinking about him again.
Charles Xavier always knew when certain people were thinking about him. It was part of who he was, to be so sensitive to certain thoughts that they virtually jumped out at him.
But every person had a 'tone', a mental signature to their thoughts. And the desperate outreach towards him was completely familiar to him, though he'd only felt it a few times in recent years.
But once, years that seemed an eternity ago, he'd felt it nearly every night.
Laying comfortably beneath the sheets of his bed in the Sheraton hotel, Xavier let his mind drift back to that time. Back when he simply knew Magneto was 'different' like he was.
In the first days after arrival in Israel, they'd shared a bed and room out of necessity. Erik couldn't afford paying for a room yet, and Charles couldn't pay for two. He couldn't remember how they'd ended up in the same bed the second night, but..
/We did, didn't we? And I never cheated on Gabriel,/ Xavier reminded himself. /No matter how tempting it was.../
Magnus trusted Xavier so much that he actually let his guard down around the man -- not entirely, of course, but let enough walls fall to show Xavier his pain, and let the other man soothe away his nightmares when he could.
But some of those nightmares couldn't be soothed by even the gentlest of mental touches -- only by having another in his bed, someone that he didn't associate with the war. That had given him trouble with his wife, Magnus had told Charles. They tried to put the war past them at all times, move on and start anew, but they both bore the physical and mental scars of it and could only cling to each-other for as long as possible.
So, in his 'new' life, Magnus clung to nothing, dared not do it, but shared a room with a friend, another 'mutant' that he could trust, and let his guard slip a little.
It was more than Charles could have ever hoped he'd get from Erik, the raw sensation of their minds touching and the softer one of body-heat through thin cloth, of those two bodies pressed close even in the heat.
/It was strange to live with him, Charles,/ came the chiding reminder, to keep himself from gilding the past. The oddest thing had bee the food -- hidden under a loose floor board, bread wrapped in linen, dried meat under the mattress... He'd been tempted to throw it all out, until he sat himself down and thought it through like a psychiatrist should.
Magnus did it out of a fear that he might one day run out of food, or the resources to get it, and wasn't about to let himself starve again. /I wonder if he still does?/ There was a high chance that he might.
/And why am I thinking so much about him now? Because I want him here? Yes, I miss his company greatly./
Especially since Lillandra had quietly broken off any relation with him that spanned beyond friendship -- it had hurt, even though they hadn't seen each other in years. They still had access to all that technology, if needed, but...
/It was just a pretence for us both -- time to move past that, to.../
There it was, again -- Erik was thinking about him very strongly, something... /If I centre on it too much, he'll know I'm reaching back, so I can't.../
And he was getting closer, steadily...
/Coming to the conference. Why?/
No immediate answers to that question, though one drifted languidly through his sleepy mind.
/For me./
~~~
There was something deeply satisfying about watching the mulling crowd that filled the convention centre. Humans and Mutants and Mutates alike, mingling and going from booth to booth, learning information about mutation, listening to key speakers talk about rights, and how to live in a 'human' world, participating in open discussion forums...
/It all goes so well,/ Xavier mused as he rested his chin in one palm, arm propped up on the arm of his wheel-chair. The crowd of people that recognised him when he was in view made it simply too much for him to actually be at the booth his 'students' ran. So Xavier remained absconded behind the blue curtain, watching what he could and resting. His voice was already raw from speaking for four hours at a press conference.
And the exhaustion came from a fitful sleep -- he'd slept, but the whole night he'd been half-pulled onto the psychic plane by Magneto's powerful mental outreaching. /There must be something terribly wrong with him. At least subconsciously, he's distressed./ Half the times Magnus had been so.. distressed, he'd ended up on Xavier's door-step. The other half he'd ended up in some sort of jail or another.
Lazing away the time behind that curtain, he'd tried to reach back only to find nothing. /Which means that he's shielding himself from me, for any number of reasons. He doesn't want me to interfere with whatever he's planning, likely.../ Those thoughts trailed off as he heard a foot-fall behind him, so softly placed.
"Enjoying this so much, Charles, that it's impossible to resist the urge to sleep?" A familiar voice, rich in timbre and firmly accented. In his mind's eye, Xavier could see, just from the man's tone, how he was standing, with that certain haughty pose he took on in public. And as he turned his wheelchair to look, he saw that he was very right. Magneto, standing there with his arms crossed. There was a certain air he held himself with, a nobility that only added to his self-imposed aloofness; even dressed down as he was just then, in tan slacks and a pale linen shirt, he still could have been pulled out of a picture book of the nobility of old. Firm, almost military, posture, and a classic muscular form; broad shoulders, narrow waist, and a face that was ageless in it's strength.
/Look at him, then look at me -- same age, and yet... so different,/ the wheel-chair bound man mused. Compared to Magneto, he was lowly, at least in form.
Magnus, however, saw him quite differently. The essence of sophistication and control, dignity and diplomacy, purified and poured into a mostly healthy, lean body that looked quite nice in the grey suit he wore. /Armani perhaps? Since when are you one to have fashion *taste*, Charles?/
"Quite, Erik -- It's very pleasurable to watch Humanity mingling with Mutants, without incident."
/Just what I expect you to say, my friend -- shall we go by the old script, or make a new one?/ He felt it then, the faint tendril trying to brush his shielded mind and failing. /Keep trying. I'll let you in when you hit something right./ "It will never last, Charles; do you really think the humans can last the next two days without tearing down the façade of your ideals?" Quietly voiced, so no others could hear their conversation. "It is very wise of you, however, to keep low-key." The silver-haired head nodded to the simple arm-powered wheel chair, raising a hand to cover a cough.
/Sick?/ Xavier didn't think he'd ever seen Magnus sick before, and for some reason, it made him both uneasy and sympathetic. /My old friend.../ "There are so many powers in the area that I didn't wish to risk interference," he spoke evenly, tone faintly amused. "I take it that you are attempting to be 'low-key', also?"
"Contrary to the views of you and your 'x-men', I do not live to stir up trouble, Xavier. I simply wish to observe this show -- perhaps it will work. And if it does not, I will be here to aid anyone that I can. So I suppose that I'll be seeing you around, Charles." With the soft rustle of cloth, he turned, gave a passing backwards wave, and walked out of the curtained off area with a smooth gait and Charles watched until he was gone completely before turning back once more to the break in the curtains he watched out from..
The convention was a strained place to have a conversation with his old friend, and Xavier had been put on edge by the heavy mental barriers Magnus was protecting himself with. /What could he be hiding? Or perhaps it's just precaution considering all the mutants that are around. Paranoia, perhaps?/ Magnus had always erred toward the safety paranoia when in a crowd, rather than trust.
Minutes later Scott Summer's form entered the little curtained area where Charles was, breaking him once more from a pleasant daze of thought. Casual all the way up to his red-quartz 'sun' glasses. He smiled down at his mentor, and handed him a flat electronic communications pad that was currently on 'hold'. "There's a bit of a stir-up in Genosha right now, Professor, but it shouldn't spread to this function. Magneto just transferred complete control of the government to Voght -- Pytro is willing to support her, and most of the Mutates will, also, so hopefully the hand-off will go smoothly." There was no place lower on Cyclops' 'to go to' list than Genosha, and the idea of having to go there again was... Horrifying. "But there's the question as to *why* Magneto stepped down -- so Hank is looking into it right now."
That left him feeling a little obsolete, but Xavier nodded. No need to tell Scott that he'd just talked with Magnus, was there? No. Such information would only put the entire team on edge, and being trigger-happy at the moment would be devastating. He looked down to the communication pad, about to ask who it was, when Scott spoke up, "It's Moira. With her weekly run-down of Legacy Virus cases."
"Thank you, Scott. Is the convention winding down for the night yet?" /Less and less people pass by.../
"Yes, sir, it is."
"Then I'll come out again as soon as I finish talking to Moira." Respectfully, Scott slipped out again. Xavier turned the 'hold' off, and was instantly greeted with Moira's tired and slightly frustrated expression.
"I was on hold for half an' hour, Charles!"
That drew a soft laugh from Xavier, as he replied, "I just got a chance to get to your call, Moira, but I'm sorry you had to wait so long."
That seemed to relax her, and she laughed herself; around her eyes were the signs of the virus, a certain darkness that made her look older than she was. "Och, It's alright, Charles." There was a pause, as she looked away from the screen, and tapped something into the control panel before her. "There's a swarm a' new cases in Genosha, o' course. Probably ten 'r so more. One in New York -- he's already being sent to Norfolk to be treated. Four in California, and two in England that are all going to report here to Muir. And one in Boston, that's... well, he's a Genoshan. I've been tracking him from there, and he's been in Boston for the past two days, Charlie -- doubt he knows he has it. Probably there f'r the conference. Speaking of that, how's it going?"
"Remarkably well, so far," Xavier uttered. "Put a track of the virus victim up, and I'll see if I can find him or her, Moira."
She nodded, and turned away to tap a few more things into the computer. "Poor sot, carrying on without knowing what's wrong. Here you go, Charlie."
"Thank you again, Moira -- I'll talk to you again later."
~~~~~
It seemed as if every turn he made was blocked by a throng of people, a sea of humanity made up of those fools who were 'protesting' the convention. Every exit brimming with those people, just outside, and police...
It had been no trouble for Magnus to unlock a side-door and slip out, locking it behind him.
/For the moment my powers work, but for how much longer...?/ That was completely disconcerting to a man such as Magnus, who'd relied on -- and used as a crutch -- those powers that now failed him so often, and alternatively swept out of control.
Outside the exit Magnus has slipped out of, there was no crowd -- unlike the main exit, where the crowd, held back by police, was so thick that even the police had trouble pressing their way through.
Let alone a Mutant who served as a near world-wide focus for hatred against mutants.
/Not that I don't completely deserve it,/ came the mentally sighed thought. What better time to give himself a brow-beating then when he was alone? /What else should I expect of them? Petty wants and fears drive them onward, just as it's driven forward so many before the.../
But he'd known want. Known fear. Known hunger, and pain, and so many other things that no man should ever know to the degree he had. And he knew deprivation from those things, knew how to starve physically and emotionally.
/Amelia will keep them safe. She shall keep away their hunger, their fear... Do them all so much better than I can./ And she would, wouldn't she? Amelia had always loved the mutates so very much, she was... the epitome of Charles' dream with the working abilities of his own. Even though he no longer held faith in it himself...
Magnus' pace, as he walked, was languid beneath the night's sky. The cool night air was refreshing, a change from the cramped, crowded atmosphere inside the convention. Just to walk, and savour it...
A slight squinting of his blue-grey eyes gained him the sight he so treasured to watch -- as yet, it wasn't failing him. The glints and swirls of magnetic fields, bright splashes of colour that made the street-lights look dull was he walked, enjoying the whispering brush of the wind over his face and the display of nature's laws.
Even the cough that nagged him wasn't going to make it un-enjoyable. The night itself had been at least a little productive. He'd seen Charles again and promised to himself to have an actual private talk with the man the next day -- but just then, he looked forward to a hot meal to take away some of the chill in his body, and the bed in his hotel-room
His room was in the Weston, and wouldn't have taken more than five minutes to walk to through the 'sky bridge' that connected it to the Conference Centre. But the press of people, moving like cattle, was too much for him most times -- he had to get to the open expanse of the outside, had to get space to move again. It was near impossible, at times, for him to stand in lines; after being *part* of the crowd in the convention, walking in those narrow sky bridges would have been unbearable.
Would Charles understand why he had to walk through the streets of Boston at midnight, to get to his hotel?
/Perhaps. He knows my past.../ Yes. He would, and Magnus knew it, subconsciously at least.
The drifting musings of the mutant's mind made him less alert than he was usually, as he walked past a group of perhaps eight teenagers, either un-noticing of them, or uncaring.
"Hey, gramps!" The call-out reached his ears, but he didn't react -- no reason to favour them with the pleasure of reacting. He only kept walking past, not picking up his speed. Magnus had no reason to show the fear he shouldn't have had. He'd have never feared the taunting of children before, when his powers worked properly, would they?
Genosha was no longer a place that he belonged, with his powers so unstable. /My age, probably,/ came the though as he kept walking, turning a corner that wouldn't take him to his hotel. That would explain the sickness that had plagued him, also. A flu that he couldn't shake, because he simply wasn't strong enough anymore to fight it.
Magnus heard those foot-falls follow him around the corner.
/That's fine, children -- What do you think you'll do? Rob me?/
He reached out with his power, to pick off them with their own weaponry before they could attack him only to find...
/Nothing./
Turning to face the boys, who stood there in a tight knit group, he kept calm, kept feeling for his power, any slight spark of it at all that he might have drawn upon.
"What'cha doing out so late at night, gramps?" the 'leader' a young man who in the light of day would have been perfectly normal and unfrightening.
"Walking from a whore's house, or coming from that conference back there?" a second one asked, as the little group moved subtly forward, closing in on him. Magnus took a slow step backwards, searching and searching for his power, to no avail.
"I haven't any money on me," he murmured smoothly, trying to shove down his accent as much as possible. "So let us not waste each-other's time."
"Big talkin' foreigner," the leader murmured, taking a step closer to Magnus, who held his ground. Blue-grey eyes were steady, and he knew he looked calm and haughty. "We're just going to check you for money..."
Grabbing Magnus' wrist was his first mistake. His second was holding on when the older man swung him into the wall. Even sick as he was, he still was in healthy shape and knew how to fight in a street fight -- how to fight for his life, and that was just what he faced then. Seven against one now...
Until the lead pipe cracked across his skull -- then he was only aware of not having sensed the pipe before it hit him.
~~~~~
"Och, Charles, what took so long?" On the communication unit, Moria looked like she'd just been taking a nap -- give the time it was on Muir Island, she may have been doing just that.
/But she's always so willing to be helpful.../ The residuals of a short romance and a lasting friendship. "I had to explain to Cyclops that having the entire team go and find this poor fellow would be devastating." Xavier wheeled his way down the street, following the map that filled half the pad. The street-lights gave enough of a cool glow to see by, to follow the red blip that had started by heading to the Weston, but by the time Charles had actually left the convention, was approaching the Sheraton, where he and the rest of the X-men had their rooms. /Conveinient, at least, that we'll have him close to safety.../
So the person was definitely going to the convention, since all three hotels connected to the centre were booked solid for it. Which also, logically, meant that the person would recognise Xavier and not take him as a threat.
At least, he hoped he wouldn't.
Xavier had already decided that since he had already have the virus once, and lived, he'd take the mutant in by himself, so that he could keep watch over the victim until the contagiousness of it was eradicated by the proper battery of drugs.
"An' then you had ta' remind him that *you* taught *him* and nowt the other way around, right." She wasn't asking, just stating, as she looked onto her own map. "He's been holding steady for five minutes now, Charles. I think he might be in the lobby, lounging...?"
"Likely," he agreed, nearing closer and closer to that little red 'blip' on the screen. /I hope he's in the lounge.../ Of course, there was the chance that it was a woman and not a man who was infected with it.
But all chances of that plummeted as he turned the corner and saw a battered form laying on the ground.
"Sweet god," he murmured softly, taken aback for a moment as he began to pick up familiar mental cries. "I've found him, Moira -- I'll get in contact with you again as soon as I can." Then he turned the pad off, quickly pushing himself close to Magnus' crumpled body.
Still alive, thankfully, which Xavier noted as he leaned forward in his chair, trying to uncurl Magnus -- it looked like it had been instinctive to curl up like that, protecting his head, knees and groin from the worst of the blows, while offering his broad back and strong neck to whatever had been used to beat him so hard as to draw bruises that were already blackening.
And his mind was wide open to Xavier, so powerfully he was broad-casting out for help.
~I'm going to die here? Of all places, of all ways, dirty and beaten on the streets of Boston...~
"Magnus?"
There was traffic on the main street, noisey and fast, but all Charles could hear was the other man's hard breathing, the ragged coughs that left Magnus as he began to uncurl, slowly... The scent of blood swirled in Xavier's nostrils as he felt for any spinal injuries before he let his hands tug further to at least get Magneto to lay out. There was a trickle of blood in the swollen looking mouth...
~Hurts... so much...~
"*Erik*! It's Charles -- work with me for now, old friend..."
A feeling of need, strong and powerful, and trust washed over Xavier. ~Charles. Safety...~
"Help," he spoke slowly, voice raw and near useless as he made an attempt to rise from the skin-scraping sidewalk. A groan rattled free of his chest, as he strained to move, until he felt hands that weren't really hands pulling him to his feet; the movements were careful, cautious. Obviously telekinesis, as he was guided to rest against the wheel-chair, the most support lent to those limbs that hurt too much to support themselves.
"I'll help you, Erik," Xavier assured, shaken himself by so... all the sudden knowledge. All those pieces suddenly clicked into a startling picture. "I'll take you into the hotel."
~No hospital.~
~No, Erik, no hospital.~
The walls of Magnus's mind threatened to rise up for a moment, but his concentration was too low to manage it -- instead, Xavier simply extended his own mental shields to his old friend.
~Don't leave me here, Charles, don't...~
"I won't," he assured shakily as he started to wheel forward, toward the back entrance of the hotel, giving enough support to Magnus to make him look like he was walking. He wouldn't leave his friend there, no matter what things Magnus had done in the past...
But he didn't know what he would do in the long run.
/Strange, to think of there being a 'long run' for this.../
~~~~~~